Inventors:
Michael Ryan Davis - Fort Collins CO, US
Russ William Herrell - Fort Collins CO, US
David R. Maciorowski - Longmont CO, US
Paul J. Mantey - Fort Collins CO, US
Michael D. Young - Fort Collins CO, US
Danial V. Zilavy - Fort Collins CO, US
Assignee:
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. - Houston TX
International Classification:
G06F 9/00, G06F 15/177, G06F 9/45
Abstract:
A machine-readable identification register is provided on each cell of a cellular computer system. The identification register is read during system startup to identify a processor type, which may include an instruction set architecture (ISA), associated with the cell. The processor type information is used to ensure that a compatible boot image is provided to processors of the cell. In another embodiment, the system management subsystem has a version selection flag. When the version selection flag is in a first state, the compatible boot image provided to processors of the cell is a current boot image; with the selection flag in a second state the compatible boot image provided to processors of the cell is an older edition of the boot image.